The present invention relates to air conditioners and more particularly to an apparatus for making hot-water by air conditioner/heater.
A conventional air conditioner 1 is shown in FIG. 1. The air conditioner 1 comprises a compressor 11, a heat recovery device 18, a heat exchanger (e.g., condenser) 12, a fan motor 13, a filter 14, and a coolant flow controller 15 (all above components are installed outdoors). The air conditioner 1 further comprises a heat exchanger (e.g., evaporator) 16 and a fan motor 17 (both are installed indoors). With this configuration, it is possible to air condition an enclosed space (A0). However, the previous design suffered from several disadvantages. For example, the rotating speed of each fan motor is fixed, i.e., it is not adapted to ambient temperature (or outlet temperature) change. As understood that, heat exchange capability of air conditioner is proportional to wind speed which in turn is proportional to motor speed. Thus, heat exchange capability is proportional to motor speed. Hence, the heat exchange capability of the air conditioner is low in nature due to such fixed rotating speed of fan motor, resulting in a waste of energy. Further, the capability of heat dissipation of condenser is always larger than the capability of heat absorption of evaporator. Hence, it is difficult for such conventional air conditioner to operate as heater when desired. Furthermore, the thermal efficiency is unacceptable low even when the air conditioner operates as heater. Moreover, the heat recovery efficiency is very low due to the fixed rotating speed of fan motor as stated above. In addition, there is no arrangement for making hot-water by the air conditioner. Thus, improvement exists.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for making hot-water by an air conditioner/heater, said apparatus comprising an outdoor section including a compressor, a heat recovery means, a heat exchanger, a fan motor, a filter, and a coolant flow controller; an indoor section including a heat exchanger and a fan motor; and a control section for air conditioning, heating, or supplying hot-water to an enclosed space, said control section including a central processing unit (CPU), a directional-control valve, a defrost bypass valve, a plurality of sensors, and a control panel wherein said CPU is operable to compare a plurality of sensed values obtained from said sensors with a plurality of predetermined values, control on-off of said compressor, switch of said directional-control valve, speed selections of said fan motors, and on-off of said defrost bypass valve, said directional-control valve is switched to permit a predetermined coolant to flow through by a selection of an air conditioning or heating mode, said sensors are located on said heat exchanger of said outdoor section, said heat exchanger of said indoor section, said enclosed space, and said heat recovery means respectively for sensing temperatures including outlet temperatures of said heat exchangers of said outdoor and indoor sections, an ambient temperature of said enclosed space, and an temperature of said heat recovery means, said heat recovery means comprises a coil with said coolant flowing through for exchanging heat, further comprising a cold water supply line, a hot-water line both in fluid communication with said heat recovery means, a water pump on said hot-water line, a hot-water reservoir on said hot-water line, the hot-water reservoir having a baffle plate and a sensor, a check valve for controlling output from said hot-water reservoir, and an overflow pipe extended from said bottom of said hot-water reservoir to a predetermined position above said coil in said heat recovery means for transferring hot-water back to said heat recovery means when said check valve is turned off.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description taken with the accompanying drawings.